“I didn’t kill him.” He springs off the doorframe and shoves his hands into his jean pockets. “I just didn’t stop the Volkovs.”
“Semantics.”
He shrugs. “Sure, but it’s also true. Are you that upset about one less bad man in the world?”
I cross the room so we’re standing close enough I can read his face. “I find it difficult to believe his death doesn’t bother you even a bit. Did you and your father have a complicated relationship? Yeah. Did he have your mother killed? Yeah, he did. But he was still your father.”
“And the world is a better place without him.”
His expression is hard, impenetrable. I’m heading into areas Finn doesn’t enjoy discussing. Even when we were younger, his father, the business, the things he did, they weren’t topics we delved into beyond a surface level. He didn’t dwell on the choices he made for his father, for the business when he was with me. To me, that meant he didn’t like making them, didn’t enjoy doing them.
“Look, Carys. I’m an asshole. I’ve never pretended otherwise. Whether or not you admit it, that gets your engine revving.” He closes the distance between us even more. “You might not want to want me”—he lowers his lips to my ear—“but you do.”
His breath breezes across my neck. My heart explodes, galloping, straining for more. His assessment is true. I don’t want to want him, and yet he’s all I want.
“People don’t change,” he says.
“Some do,” I whisper, and his jaw tightens.
“Too late for me. I’m an old dog.”
Jay clears his throat behind Finn, and we spring apart. I hadn’t realized how close we’d gotten, though my body is warm, languid with desire. Without Jay as a buffer, I would have slept with Finn on every conceivable surface at every location we’d gone to in the last twenty-four hours. The tension between us is almost more than I can bear.
“Valeriya?” I ask Jay, over Finn’s shoulder.
“No, but I got a lead on who intercepted your money transfer to Ricardo.”
I raise my eyebrows in question.
“Charles put a stop to it.”
A shot of annoyance mixed with confusion mingles in me. “My father? How?”
“He has privileges on the account you used. The bank says he would have received an automatic alert about the money in transit, and he would have rerouted it back.”
Placing my hand on my forehead, I make small circles with my fingertips. Why would my father bother to step in? He’d have no reason to interfere unless he found out why I was using the money. My relationship with Finn was a sore spot for him, partly because it ruined a business relationship, partly because it almost ruined me.
“The money went back into the same account?” I say.
“No, into a separate account.” Jay hesitates and then says, “Must not have wanted you to know Ricardo didn’t get the transfer.”
Motherfucker.“I’ll deal with him later,” I say. “Ricardo is dead, so the delayed payment isn’t an issue anymore. My warehouse, Valeriya, those are priorities.”
“And the threats,” Finn adds. “We don’t have any idea who was threatening you and why.”
“Even you said those were Mickey Mouse.” I close the desk drawers and step around him into the main living space. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s also on the back burner for later.”
“The threat in Switzerland was amateur, yeah. But if it was the same person opening fire at Ricardo’s piece-of-shit house, that ups the ante.” He doesn’t follow me, only increases the volume of his voice.
“Any news from the airports? Taxi companies?” I ask Jay as I grab my purse off the couch and riffle through it for my phone.
Finn’s sigh of annoyance echoes in the apartment. Those threats are the last thing I need to worry about. Doesn’t matter what he thinks.
“No record of her taking a taxi or leaving via a traditional airline. She could be traveling under another name. Fake documents are easy enough to get here,” Jay says.
“Finn, your IT guys were going to email me or text me information?”
“They’ll be in touch. I’ve used them before. They’re good. If there is something to be found, they’ll find it.”